and expert at seeing the cosmos on 30 Altairian dollars a day. Ford lives by the Guide's seminal bit of advice: Don't Panic. Which comes in handy when their first ride--on the very same vessel that demolished Earth to make way for a hyperspacial freeway--ends disastrously (they are booted out of an airlock). with 30 seconds of air in their lungs and the odd of being picked up by another ship 2^276,709 to 1 against, the pair are scooped up by the only ship in the universe powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive.But this (and the idea that Bogart movies and McDonald's hamburgers now exist only in his mind) is just the beginning of the weird things Arthur will have to get used to. For, on his travels, he'll encounter Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-President of the Galaxy; Trillian, a sexy spacecadet he once tried to pick up at a cocktail party, now Zaphod's girlfriend; Marvin, a chronically depressed robot; and Slartibartfast, the award-winning engineer who built the Earth and travels in a spaceship disguised as a bistro.Arthur's crazed wanderings will take him from the restaurant at the end of the Universe (where the main dish of the day introduces itself and the floor show is doomsday), to the planet Krikkit (locked in Slo-Time to punish its inhabitants for trying to end the Universe), to Earth (huh? wait! wasn't it destroyed?!) to the very offices of The Hitchhiker's Guide itself as he and his friends quest for the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything ... and search for a really good cup of tea.Ready or not, Arthur Dent is in for one hell of a ride!

    Together this dynamic pair begin their journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitch Hiker's Guide "A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have" and a galaxy-full of fellow travellers: Zaphod Beeblebrox - the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out to lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ball-point pens he has bought over the years.

    Admired for its clarity and zest, Impro lays bare the techniques and exercises used to foster spontaneity and narrative skill for actors. These techniques and exercises were evolved in the actors' studio, when he was Associate Director of the Royal Court and then in demonstrations to schools and colleges and ultimately in the founding of a company of performers called The Theatre Machine.Divided into four sections, 'Status', 'Spontaneity', 'Narrative Skills' and 'Masks and Trance', arranged more or less in the order a group might approach them, the book sets out the specific approaches which Johnstone has himself found most useful and most stimulating. The result is a fascinating exploration of the nature of spontaneous creativity.

    Our Erma is on her way to becoming a sub-total woman.

    But, with its unforgettable songs and its infinitely quotable script it has gone on to become an enduring cult classic.

    His mixture of verbal wit and beautifully crafted farce, ethnic humor and insight into universal foible, and above all compassion and understanding, make even his sharpest barbs touch the heart as well as the funny bone. These seven plays, beginning with his unforgettable debut, Come Blow Your Horn, make us laugh uproariously even as we indelibly identify with the objects of our laughter.

    A collection of stories by the author who describes things that happened to him while living in the southern United States

    Now a fresh generation of readers will be able to enjoy the Hideous Hog and the Rueful Rabbit.

    Our much-cherished humorist opens her heart with a story that shines with the hope of restoration in the wake of pain and tragedy.

    The image of the middle-aged, balding and bespectacled gentleman is unmistakable. In black and white or color, in English or in German, Herman is a cartoon character who provides a daily dosage of levity and subtlety for addicted readers around the world".--OTTAWA CITIZEN.

    Here, for example, is the story of the Most Unsuccessful Tourist, who got off the plane during a refueling stop and spent three days in Los Angeles thinking he was in Rome.

    

    Start reading this book and you'll cut all your classes, fail your exams, and discover the hidden truth about higher education!!!

    

    Kaufman has,” theatre critic John Mason Brown wrote of George S. Kaufman. “The wisecrack is something he snaps as precisely as a ringmaster his whip.” Kaufman, however, didn’t confine his remarkable talent merely to writing (with Moss Hart) such hit comedies as Once in a Lifetime, You Can’t Take It With You, and The Man Who Came to Dinner — he regularly entertained readers of magazines and newspapers with his unique (if jaundiced) view of modern life. Now, for the first time these short pieces, which originally appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, The Nation, and The New York Times, are collected in one highly amusing volume.Written over the course of almost four decades, they remain as fresh and funny as when they were written, revealing the wit for which Kaufman justly famous. In all, fifty pieces are reprinted here, raking from short essays to poems and one-act plays, to the complete text of the Marx Brothers’ show, The Cocoanuts. Also included is Hollywood Pinafore, a parody of H.M.S. Pinafore, that remains one of the most hilariously accurate depictions of Hollywood ever written, and Life’s Calendar for 1922 (with Marc Connelly), an irreverent chronology of humanity’s achievements. Four pages of photographs accompany the text.